Sub menu

Boks draw Samoa (again), Scots for RWC 2015

The Springboks were drawn with Samoa and Scotland in Pool B for the Rugby World Cup in 2015. The Pool Allocation Draw took place in London on Monday afternoon.

South Africa, currently second in the International Rugby Board’s world rankings and Rugby World Cup winners in 1995 and 2007, head Pool B for the 2015 tournament, which will take place in England.

It’s the fourth consecutive time that the Springboks have been drawn in the same pool with Samoa, and the second time they are in the same group as Scotland, as in 1999.

Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer, who attended the draw at the Tate Modern in London, was satisfied with the pool allocation.

“Our aim was to be in the first band of teams and we achieved that, moving from fourth at the start of the year to second in the IRB world rankings,” said Meyer.

“As I said before the draw was made – to us it doesn’t matter who we are drawn against, because to win the World Cup, you have to beat the best teams out there.

“If ever there was testimony that the gap between the top teams have closed, we saw that over the past month in the Northern Hemisphere. There really is very little to choose between the top sides in the world, while the next batch of teams has also improved a lot recently.”

Reply to Americano @ 2:35 am: Didn’t apply in the Dubai 7’s final. Samoa were hard out winners over NZ. Amazing how these PI guys feature year after year with the odds stacked against them. Population of Samoa = 180 000, about the population of Paarl. As good as Boland rugby can be, can you imagine the slaughter if the best of Paarl had to contest a World Cup game?

I tell you what, a France v England final in 2015 will set up a vengeful Japan RWC for SH sides with SA, Aus and NZ smokin’ hot for vengeance…

The problem is that France performs champion one game and like spluttering mongrels the next. They can beat New Zealand one week and lose to Tonga the next.

England play like South Africa… just not as well as us. In the 1999 – 2003 era they did it all exactly like us, while we tried to play like the Brumbies as our English media squealed for us to do to “play the modern game” and “embrace the 15 man game”…

Reply to Americano @ 3:59 pm: Ha ha the analogy raised a laugh but the last laugh will be on the Harleys at the next Olympics where the mopeds (7’s ) will be competing for mens and womens medals and the Harleys will be left out in the parking lot!

Reply to out wide @ 1:46 am:
All for it. USA are current rugby (15s of course ) gold medal holders/defenders. With the 7’s sideshow this should remain in place for decades more – coinflip as to what we’ll lose first the gold medal or having the world’s reserve currency
Though my hunch would be the latter 😀